Greener and Sustainable Chemistry

Solvents and sustainable chemistry

Solvents are widely recognized to be of great environmental concern. The reduction of their use is one of the most important aims of green chemistry. In addition to this, the appropriate selection of solvent for a process can greatly improve the sustainability of a chemical production process. There has also been extensive research into the application of so-called green solvents, such as ionic...

Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

The cleavage of b-O-4 linkages in lignin can generate monomers with a phenyl propane structure that can easily be upgraded into valuable hydrocarbon biofuels and renewable aromatic chemicals. High-yield lignin monomer production from extracted (or technical) lignin that is produced in a practical way could facilitate the productivity and profitability of biomass conversion processes. However, i...

LED based lighting and communications: An emerging technology for a greener more sustainable future

The paper discusses on the effect that the growth in our energy consumption as a species is having upon the planet, and how the global lighting and telecommunications industries are major contributors. We demonstrate that through the adoption of LED based lighting combined with visible light communications, substantial economical and power savings by orders of magnitude can be made over existin...

Ionic Liquids: Solvents for sustainable chemistry

Sustainable chemistry - from theory to practice

The Japanese petrochemical industry is one of the largest in the world. The strong growth of the plastic packaging market has been fuelled by the consumer demand for clean, easy, functional and cheap products. However this success has created a number of environmental problems such as waste, CO2 emissions and energy consumption throughout the life cycle of petrochemicals. In order to enhance th...